Phils Squander Lead, Lose 5-3 to the Pirates

Roy Halladay continued to silence critics with another solid performance, as Corey predicted on this week’s PNTV. His eight strikeouts and two walks were much closer to what we’re used to from Doc. Although his strike ratio of 57/95 was still lower than normal, Halladay made it through 6 innings allowing just a single hit. Unfortunately, that hit in the fourth did yield a run, as Halladay walked and hit a batter earlier in the inning as he tried to paint the inside corner on lefties.

Roy tee’d up the game for the Bastardo-Adams-Paplebon trio to close out the 3-1 lead. Bastardo gave up a solo shot in the sixth but finished his inning without further damage. Mike Adams subsequently allowed 2 walks, 2 singles and a run before yielding to Jeremy Horst. Horst allowed one of his inherited runners to score – the winning run – before recording three outs. He pitched the ninth and allowed another run, but by that point, the Phillies and the crowd were deflated.

Offensive spurts

Chase Utley and Ryan Howard each hit second-deck home runs tonight. The bombs were spectacular, not the least of which because they were off a lefty. But of course, no one was on base and they were just solo shots.

The Phillies supplemented their paltry 2 walks in the game with 10 hits. Still, it wasn’t enough as they left eight runners on base. One particularly disheartening play occurred in the fifth inning as Michael Young grounded into a 6-4-2 double play. Jimmy Rollins was nailed at home after unwisely attempting to sneak a run across.

Game Notes

Domonic Brown made a diving catch in the fifth (is it me, or are the Phillies racking up the Web Gems this season?)…Chase Utley followed his homer with an infield bunt single in the fifth inning…Michael Young’s consecutive game hit streak ended at 14.

Jimmy had a bad game this evening. Ran himself out of runs in the first and on the aforementioned attempt to score on Young’s groundout. First pitch swinging after they forced Wandy out of the game. Reallyy no thought to his game…no plan at all.

just another bad lose that is going to keep haunting this team. how many more times are they going to leave runners on base. another first and third and no one out and they don’t score. bad base running by Rollins. just frustrating to watch when they lose games and it is them doing it to themselves.

How many more times will they leave runners on base? I now expect to see it every night. Not going to get my hopes up expecting anything different anymore. Lower the expectations and its not a big of a bummer when you see the same damn thing every night. Gonna be a long, long, painful season. Possibly a long painful era of Phillies baseball.

the only possible silver lining I see right now is at the Phillies can still salvage a series split against a Pirates team that is playing good ball right now. After having just split with the Cardinals it would make for back to back splits with good teams.

This negative talk is ridiculous. It’s only been 20 games. The phillies., like a lot of teams, have not gotten off to a strong start. They might not be a good team, but it’s way too early to give up. The absolute main concern was doc, and that seems to be less of a concern now. My main concern is that there seems to be something missing with the way they play as a team. There doesn’t seem to be any urgancy or drive to get this going. I could be completely wrong. I don’t see every game. It’s just a thought.

I think the negative talk stems from the fact that this team hasn’t played in a meaningful game since October 2011. A game that really had significant implications. They really haven’t been a contending team by any definition in over a year now. Some may say that they had a outside shot at the second Wild Card at some point last season, but the team went to Houston and dropped three out of four (to the worst team in baseball). I’m still going to games, but I stand by my pre-season prediction of about 78 wins give or take a win or two. The fan in me would love to see more, but I don’t see how it’s possible.

Thank you Frank, they’ve played just a little over the equivalent of ONE NFL game in a 16 games schedule. 142 games is a long way to go. If the Eagles lose their first game is the season over?

As far as your concern, I see signs that they ARE playing with urgency. Dom Brown laying out like that, you never saw that before. People want to bash Jimmy for running into two outs, but that’s due to playing with urgency trying to do whatever he can to stretch a single into a double etc. I see plenty of urgency. Howard finally getting off the snide, you know what happens when he gets hot. Utley and him hitting bombs against a very talented left hander, the team hitting .182 vs lefties, and went out and got 10 hits last night. They are improving, and it’s gonna translate into wins very soon. 142 games folks, this isn’t even close to over.

One reason for optimism is that the offense is much more likely to get much better than to get worse. Of the 8 positions, I would bet significant money that only 1 might be hitting worse by the end of the year: SS. Two of the eight should be around where they are now, or better: 2B and 3B. Five of the eight positions should be hitting much better by the end of the year than they have so far: C, 1B, LF, CF, RF.

Also…
Halladay has a 5.08 ERA so far — do we expect that to be better or worse the rest of the way?
Hamels has a 5.40 ERA so far — better or worse the rest of the way?

I commented on supporting the team through slumps and I get frustrated when they don’t hit. But the sloppy play and mental errors they made last night causes concern. It is the mental lapses that makes me not to watch. In addition is it my imagination or do the phillies ground in to more double plays then every other team

It is not your imagination, Beta, they’re getting killed in that department. Ben Revere is a double play machine with 4 by himself.

I really don’t think the guy can hit a ball out of the infield, they told us he was like Juan Pierre, who could spray dinks and dunks into the outfield, I don’t see it. Even his line drive that gave them the lead the other night hit the edge of the infield dirt before skittering into the outfield. He’s too small, too weak, and his legs too short to be fast on the base-paths IMO.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Carrera get a start or two, or Mayberry in CF for a couple games. I don’t know if this guy Revere has what it takes. He has an 11% LD rate, that’s unacceptable for a major leaguer.

“Negative talk” ridiculous? “its only been 20 games”? How about all of last season, too? So make that 182 games. And the season before that…so make that 344 games. By the way, my mama coulda hit that ball that Howard homered on last night. We need Nick Swisher. Where is he?

News Flash , they activated the hitting guru for one game so he can show those “young” hitters how it’s done. this activation was cancelled when they noticed that most of the team was batting over.197. Chill it’s early.
Fritz

I don’t see how they will make the playoffs with Brown, Revere and Mayberry as their outfielders. Your outfield should be a strength and we have the worst in baseball. Two of them are hitting just above .200